Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Polyscias murrayi

Flowering stems. Australian Plant Image Index, Australian Tropical Rainforest key

Flowers and leaves. Photographer Don Wood, Dalmeny

Fruit and leaves. Photographer Don Wood, Currowan State Forest west of Batemans Bay

Young tree. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Terania Creek near Kyogle, NSW

Common name

Pencil Cedar, Umbrella Tree, White Basswood, Pencilwood, Pencil Cedar

Family

Araliaceae

Where found

Rainforest margins, wet gullies, roadsides, and disturbed rainforest. Coast, ranges, and the eastern edge of the tablelands.

Notes

Tree to 24 m high. Fruit fleshy. Bark smooth except for lines of corky blisters. Stems sparsely hairy, becoming hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, 50-130 cm long, compound, with 13-51 leaflets. Leaflets 5–16 cm long, 20–90 mm wide, tips pointed, margins with minute teeth, not aromatic when crushed; stalks U-shaped in cross section. Flowers white to yellow or light green, with 5 spreading petals each 2-3 mm long, in many-flowered branched clusters. Flowering: March–April. Fruit purple to blue when ripe, roundish, about 5 mm long.

Vulnerable Vic.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Polyscias~murrayi (accessed 2 February, 2021)